


One-Winged Asshole

by SneakyBunyip



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Humor, Aziraphale Helps Crowley Hisses, Gabriel Doesnt Fall but he does trip, Gabriel gets demoted, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 11:43:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20741660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SneakyBunyip/pseuds/SneakyBunyip
Summary: Gabriel had heard that Falling into a Lake of Fire was the most agonizing feeling an angel could experience. No one talked much about the pain of falling from Heaven onto a concrete sidewalk. It hurt like Hell, by the way.





	One-Winged Asshole

“Get that fucking butterknife out of my face, Michael,” snarled Gabriel, slapping the flat of the angel’s blade away.

“No.” With fluid grace, Michael arched the sword overhead and returned its aim to Gabriel’s throat, tearing the fabric of his ivory turtleneck.

It was important to keep his shoulders relaxed, to not allow his hands to shake, nor his dark eyebrows furrow. 

He made sure he wore a smile that was Friendly™. 

“Michael, I’m asking you nicely: Put down the sword.”

“Turn around.”

The smile almost faltered. His shoulders almost tensed. 

He felt his wings push against his gray blazer with the rising tension, but he kept them tucked, protected, just in case.

“You're joking. You have to be. Unless this is some desperate attempt to steal my job. You’ve always wanted to be head archangel, haven’t you?”

Michael’s expression remained unmoved, copper-flecked lips thin and unamused. 

“I don't take pleasure in this, Gabriel, but if I’m promoted to take your place, then so be it.” 

Gabriel’s blood dropped a few degrees within his celestial body.

“Fine,” he snorted, raising his hands in mock surrender. “I take it back. Forget what I said, and let’s just move on to focus on the  _ real _ enemies here.”

“Do you think I’m stupid, Archangel?” Michael boomed, the smattering of gold across their sharp cheekbones beginning to spread.

“You  _ are _ holding a sword to my throat? So yeah, I’d say you’re a fucking idiot.”

In the distance, several hundred yards away in the White Halls of Heaven’s Head Office, a pair of angels slowed on their hoverboards to watch the exchange. Neither of them stopped, however. 

They knew better than to stop.

“The only idiot here is the one Asking Questions,” Michael sniffed.

“One,” Gabriel snapped, holding a long finger up with powerful conviction. “I asked one question.”

“That is all it takes,” Michael spat. “A few thousand years ago, a Question would have dropped the floor out from beneath you, but apparently The Almighty is too busy these days. Fortunately for Heaven, I’m not.”

“You’re overreacting,” Gabriel blurted. “I’m your Superior. Stand down, angel.”

“Turn. Around.  _ Sir. _ ”

Gabriel didn’t move. He was the Archangel Fucking Gabriel and he moved for no one but God, Herself.

_ Where was She? Why wasn’t She intervening on his behalf? She wouldn’t let Michael do this...would She? _

Michael tilted their blade, the very tip pressed against Gabriel's bare throat. It wasn’t hard enough to cut, but Gabriel could feel the heat of Justice against his skin. Heavenly light didn’t just gleam off Michael’s golden sword, it flowed through it.

A magnificent weapon: one that would have been devastating against the Demons of Hell. 

Gabriel...didn’t have a weapon. Not technically. 

But he didn’t need one! His weapon was the Power of Words, and those Words had, so far, shaped nations whether the Earth knew it or not. 

Throughout the ages, he had passed on Messages of the Almighty with pride and grace, planting seeds of hope and obedience in Humanity.

Up until this moment, Gabriel didn’t think he needed a sword.

“Michael,” he tried again, resuming a smile that could  _ only _ be communicated as Nice. “Let’s talk about this. The ‘Question’ wasn’t really a question at all, just a quirky, wacky thought that was-”

“Sacrilege,” Michael hissed and advanced forward.

Gabriel hopped back, narrowly avoiding the blade spearing his throat. “It wasn’t  _ sacrilege _ . I was just angry!”

“It’s too late, Gabriel,” Michael’s voice was calm now. Way too calm. “Turn around and let’s be done with this. You can’t come back from a Question like that, we both know it.”

“Bullshit, I can’t. I’m an Archangel. I’m  _ the _ Archangel.”

For a split moment, Gabriel thought he saw mercy in Michael’s eyes, maybe a glimmer of sympathy.

Michael lowered their sword, the tip clanging musically against the pristine marble floor.

“No.” There was pain etched in Michael's voice. “Not anymore.”

The angel vanished.

“Michael, wait!”’

Gabriel sensed Michael behind him too late, and felt a hand, searing with the heat of Judgment, slam between his shoulder blades. He fell to his knees and his platinum wings spread out unbidden. 

The blade swung once, and it struck true. 

The deed was done. Never to be undone.

And Gabriel felt every microsecond of that moment, and somehow, even as he fell through the recently waxed floor of Heaven, he fought stubbornly against every Emotion surging within him. 

Agony and grief were drowned out by anger and denial. 

Guilt was smothered by blame, and his hatred… 

… He fanned the flames of his hatred. 

At Michael, at Aziraphale, at Crowley, at the anti-christ brat Adam, it was all their fault he was here. 

They ruined everything. 

They destroyed his reason for existing. 

And the Question that was the reason for his demotion…that was on them, too.

_ That fucking Question... _

Gabriel had heard that Falling into a Lake of Fire was the most agonizing feeling an angel could experience.

No one talked much about the pain of falling from Heaven onto a concrete sidewalk.

It hurt like Hell, by the way.

An Angels’ form doesn’t go  _ splat _ like a human’s body. It goes  _ thud. _ A dull, painful thud like a very small gong being hit with a really large mallet.

The sensation reverberated through Gabriel with such intensity that the world was nothing but a white sheet of pain, blinding and inescapable.

When his vision cleared, it didn't clarify much other than the fact he was definitely on Earth, and not in the Filing Room of Hell. 

_ But where on Earth…? _

Aside from knowing his bruised cheek was smooshed against concrete, Gabriel had little else to go on. He saw a dirty sidewalk, a crumpled pair of black sunglasses, and the blurry movements of designer imposter oxfords running towards him.

“Oh good Lord! Gabriel?!” Gasped a horrifically familiar voice. The newcomer knelt beside him and, even before he could see the pudgy hand adorned by an angelic signet ring, he knew he was in a place worse than Hell. 

“Gabriel, what happened to you?!”

“Get the fuck away from me,” was what Gabriel  _ wanted _ to say, but it came out more in the shape of “Gefuggawayfmeh”.

“I will not,” the renegade angel replied. “You’re hurt.”

“Amfine,” Gabriel slurred and to prove it, he was going to stand up and punch the angel’s heavenly lights out.

Gabriel twitched a single back muscle and…that's as far as he got. 

Agony shot through him like a thunderbolt, seizing his spine and exploding through the ligaments of his wing that was there...and the wing that wasn’t.

_ Oh God...my wing...it’s really... _

“I’m going to make you sleep now,” Aziraphale said gently. “We’ll get you inside and fix you right up.”

Angry, pained tears blurred Gabriel’s vision, and his teeth bared in a snarl. “Don’t...touch...me...traitor…”

A warm palm touched his sweating forehead and before he could jerk away relief flooded him, dulling the sharp pain, obscuring the fear and panic and grief. 

“You’ll be alright,” Aziraphale said, softly. “It'll all be alright.”

Gabriel had just enough energy to raise a shaky hand...

...make a rude gesture…

...then let sleep take him.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr: [SneakyBunyip](http://sneakybunyip.tumblr.com/)  



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